“I can smell a Jew at five yards,” the officer said, now looking directly at me. He smiled and flexed backwards, showing still more prominently the bulge of the metal in his pocket. “And I can smell subversion. You were beside him. You were with him?”
I wanted to tell the man very smartly I’d never seen Greenspan before in my life. It was the truth. He’d pushed in front of me not half an hour before, and had been giving me funny, sideways looks ever since. I thought of claiming friends in high places. Instead of all this, though, I opened my mouth and found that I couldn’t even breathe out. The officer was looking triumphant. Already, I could fear, he was turning to give orders to more of his men. Before I could open my mouth and try for gibbering, the bore had an arm on my shoulder.
“My dear fellow,” he said to the officer, “you’ll find this young man really is a British subject. He had nothing to do with your felon.” The officer’s face turned a kind of puce. I thought for a moment he’d pull out his gun and try some pistol whipping. But he controlled himself. He took the bore’s offered passport and looked long and closely at it, comparing face with photograph.
“Stanhope,” he said at length to the bore, separating the syllables into Stan Hope, a slight emphasis on the second syllable. He twisted his thin face into an apology for a smile. “Reginald Stanhope. Do your friends in England call you Reggie?”
“They call me Major Stanhope,” came the reply in a tone that avoided all hint of rebuke. The officer turned the pages of the passport.
“Well, Major Stanhope,” he said, now mockingly, it says here you’re subject to Imperial immigration control. You sure don’t look like no nigger.”
“British bred,” came the now breezy reply, “though born in Cyprus. The law is very strict, you know—doesn’t just apply to Her Majesty’s coloured subjects. One law for all and all that.” The officer continued looking at the much-stamped pages.
“What was the purpose of your visit?” he asked with a lapse into the official. He pointed at the dense mass of previous visa stamps. “Is it family business?”
“Not in so many words, dear boy,” Stanhope said with a wave. “But there’s a brotherhood among those of us who served in the War that’s very like blood.” I tried not to look at the black glove that covered the stillness of his right hand. He saw my attempt and laughed softly and held the hand up. “I got this on the fourth day at Paschendaele,” he said. “Jerry machine gun bullet—went in through the knuckles, lodged in the elbow. Whole lower arm had to come off in the end.” He waved the artificial limb and looked the officer in the face. “You might say I was lucky. Whatever the case, life goes on. You learn to get by with the other hand. I can’t complain.
“I sit on the Veterans’ Relief Board in London,” he said, pulling himself back to the main subject. “Not many Americans in the War, of course—came in too late for that. But they took quite a few casualties. All old men now, those still with us—some older than me. But American war pensions don’t buy much with all this inflation. We do what we can. You’d be surprised the difference a few shillings a week can make between want and dignity.”
“They fought in England’s war,” the officer said with quiet contempt. “It’s only right that England should look after them now.” He gave Stanhope back his passport and now took mine. “Anthony Markham,” he said with the same division of syllables. “Born in Rei-gate, January 17 1930?” I nodded and managed a feeble smile. I wondered if Stanhope was laughing inwardly at the unconscious reversal of the dates. I could feel the sweat running down my back. “And the purpose of your visit?”
“I’m an historian,” I said, trying and failing to match Stanhope’s easy assurance. “I’m researching a biography of Winston Churchill. You—you may have heard of him. He was half-American—his mother’s side. He left all his later papers to Harvard. I was out here to consult them. I—I…” The officer had lost interest, and I trailed off. Avoiding his face, I looked up at the statue of Anslinger. It had been cast in the early days when he was modelling himself on Mussolini, and there was still black paint on areas of the uniform. Somehow, the artists had got a smile on the man’s face. He was looking down at the little girl he held in his arms. She looked back adoringly. I tried to think of something flattering to say about my trip.
Just then, though, the sound of a gunshot came though the doors. Stanhope raised his eyebrows. “Well, really!” someone said from far along the queue behind me. All about, there was a buzz of quiet outrage. I looked past the President’s statue, though the single sheet of plate glass that gave a view over the landing field and the huge body of the airship that quivered two hundred feet up in the breeze. The cabin was painted in the Imperial Airways colours, and had a Union Flag at each end.
I felt a hard bump in my chest. It was the officer handing back my passport. Before I could gather any words for thanks, he and his men were already heading back for the doors.
“Next,” the clerk grated. It was my turn. Still trembling, I put my passport on her desk and pulled out the paper copy of my exit visa. She ignored the documents and pointed at the five wooden boxes my coloureds were still attending. “There’s a forty pound weight limit for non-stowed luggage,” she said. I pointed at the handwritten amendment on my ticket. She waved it aside. “There’s a forty pound weight limit for non-stowed luggage,” she repeated in exactly the same tone. I stared up at the ceiling and tried to pull myself together.
“I am a personal friend of the British Foreign Secretary, Harold Macmillan,” I said with an attempt at firmness. “These boxes contain papers for a project in which he has taken an interest.” She gave me the dead look that only officials in a down at heel police state can give.
“There’s a forty pound weight limit for non-stowed luggage,” she replied, for all the world as if there were a gramophone record in place of her mind, and the needle had stuck in a groove. I smiled weakly. Normally, I’d have called the representative over and got him to explain things. Now, I was even willing to leave the boxes behind. For all they meant to me, the safety of that cabin hovering in the sky outside meant more.
“If I might be so bold, Dr Markham,” Stanhope whispered conspiratorially from behind, “I would suggest the offer of a supplemental fare. £2 should do the trick.” I swallowed and reached into my pocket. There was obviously no point offering any of the thousand dollar bills that still bulked out the paper section. Instead, I took out one and two half sovereigns, and pushed them quietly across the desk. The clerk stared at them. She took up one of the smaller coins and bit into the gold. She covered all three coins with a sheet of paper. Without another word, she stamped my documents. Well she might. That must have been a month’s salary for her.
“Next,” she cried. I glanced at my coloureds and pointed at the boxes. There were hours still to go till boarding. But I could at least get out of this bloody queue.
CHAPTER TWO
As we passed out of American air space, and the black escort helicopters turned back, the bar opened in the first class saloon. I tore at the cellophane on a packet of Woodbines and jammed a cigarette between my lips. Ever since taking the railway train from Chicago, I’d been counting the days till I could light up without risk of a coshing from some thug in uniform with an Irish name. Now, after a month of forced abstinence, the first lungful of smoke came straight back out in a stuttering cough. But I suppressed the burning sensation and squeezed my eyes shut. I took in another drag and held it this time until the tension of the dreadfulness of Anslinger International began to drain away. I let out a stream of bluish-grey smoke and reached for the treble brandy I’d ordered. According to the waitress, it would be seventy five hours before I could see the greens and browns of an England in late winter. But it was enough for now that I was out of America and out of American air space. Here, even the Republican Guard couldn’t intercept an Imperial Airways ship. If I looked left out of the window, I’d still be able to see the Anslinger Monument on Ellis Island. The sun would be going down behind it.